A good many deaths result each year from blunt trauma injuries, such as resulting from automobile accidents, aircraft crashes, or bad parachute landings. Dealing with these severe blunt trauma injuries in the field is a nightmare for emergency responders, especially when such trauma occurs to the abdomen. Trauma to the abdominal can result in kidney, spleen, or other solid organ hemorrhages, and often leads to death. For example, a significant spleen laceration can kill a patient in 5-10 minutes if that patient does not receive immediate emergency medical surgery. The standard practice for an emergency responder when abdominal trauma is noticed is to transport the patient as quickly as possible to a hospital where tests can be administered to identify severe bleeding and perform emergency surgery to stop the bleeding. However, quite often transport to a hospital is unavailable or a hospital may be so far away that even under the best transportation scenarios the patient may expire in-route. Further, internal abdominal hemorrhages may not even be identifiable to an emergency responder until systemic symptoms in the patient emerge and by then the patient may only have a few minutes to live.
Field appropriate mechanical and pneumatic tourniquets for the abdomen exist and provide some assistance for abdominal trauma. For example, the Same Junctional Tourniquet (“SAM”), the Combat Ready Clamp, or “CRoC” as it is often referred to, which is simply a large mechanical “C” clamp,” and a pneumatic tourniquet offered under the tradename “Abdominal Aortic Tourniquet” or “AAT” are all known and utilized for field trauma victims. However, these solutions tend to be designed for known, specifically located traumas and hemorrhages that can be directly observed and monitored. In addition, these solutions are often inadequate to stop bleeding for internal organ lacerations in the abdomen caused by blunt trauma because the exact location and severity of the laceration often cannot easily be ascertained. For example, the “CRoC” will not assist in stopping an internal abdominal hemorrhage unless that hemorrhage is located relatively close to the surface of the body of the patient and its exact location also known so that proper placement of the compressing member in the CRoC may be applied to the bleeding location.
Pneumatic tourniquets are another potential solution. Pneumatic tourniquets use pneumatic pressure and generally are a targeted application of external pressure to an area of the body to stop blood flow in major blood vessels, such as in the abdomen of a patient. The bladders of a pneumatic tourniquet focus pressure energy under field medic expertise and direction to cause an occlusion of a primary internal blood vessel, such as the aorta. However, the effectiveness of a pneumatic tourniquet is dependent somewhat on the ability for a field medic to recognize the source of the internal bleeding and properly position the pneumatic tourniquet on a patient's abdomen, and such focused pressure while providing some benefit may not stop a hemorrhaging organ such as a spleen from bleeding because it is also supplied with blood from ancillary blood vessels. Further, field responders often have no idea whether an inter-abdominal hemorrhage has occurred, and may not recognize that a pneumatic tourniquet can assist in stopping the hemorrhage. Finally, improper placement or operation of the pneumatic tourniquet may render it ineffective or reduce its effectiveness.
Hence, a medical device is needed for emergency responders to utilize to quickly stop internal abdominal hemorrhaging, at least for a time, until a patient may arrive at a proper medical facility for surgical treatment to the injury.
Such a medical device may be best used in association with pneumatic tourniquets such as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,834,517B2 and 9,149,280B2. As disclosed in those patents, the pneumatic tourniquet inventions include structures for applying pressure to the torso area of the human body and the present invention is preferably inserted on the inner side of a pneumatic tourniquet and pressure applied with the operation of the pneumatic tourniquet, such as during inflation.
For example, referring to FIG. 6 of U.S. Pat. No. 9,149,280B2 with those noted elements, pneumatic tourniquets include some minimal structures to function, such as a base plate 18, an inflatable bladder 20 depending downward from the base plate, sometimes connected to the base plate through a foam pad 48 to reduce the impact of the plate on the bladder, an air supply line 60 to fill the bladder, a pressure relief valve 62, and an air bulb pump 58. Pneumatic tourniquets also typically include a waist strap 16 that encircles and secures the pneumatic tourniquet to the patient, including a quick connect buckle 68 and a compression latch 30 for compressing and adjusting same. FIG. 6 of U.S. Pat. No. 9,149,280B2, and the disclosure between Col. 5, line 47 through Col. 6, line 50 of U.S. Pat. No. 9,149,280B2, are hereby incorporated by reference. It will be noted that all pneumatic tourniquets include shaped bladders such that the lower edge of the bladder contacting the patient is less wide than the upper portion contacting the base. This tends to form the bladder into generally a “V” shape having the narrow edge at the lower portion of the bladder contacting the patient upon which it is used.
Therefore, a supplemental device used in association with a pneumatic tourniquet will assist in addressing an abdominal hemorrhage in the field and potentially save lives when imperfect knowledge of a patient's actual internal bleeding condition is known or when timely extraction of a hemorrhaging patient to a surgical facility is impossible.